The Tatuaje Skinny Tiff is one of ten cigars that make up the Tatuaje Skinny Monsters collection. Skinny Monsters is a sampler of ten 6 x 38 petite lanceros based on various Tatuaje Monster Series releases. Since 2008, the Tatuaje Monsters Series has been an annual release right before Halloween. For each installment of the series, a different blend with a different size pays homage to a monster / horror movie character. While the Monsters Series remains an annual release, there have been three off-shoots sampler releases: Little Monsters, Pudgy Monsters, and now Skinny Monsters. Today we take a look at one of the installments in the Skinny Monsters set, the Skinny Tiff. Overall, while not a bad cigar, the Skinny Tiff is a cigar I found to fall little short in terms of expectations.

All four of the Monster Series collections are limited in production. Here is some further details

• Monster Series:  Released annually (usually around Halloween) since 2008. These have been Double Corona or Churchill sizes
• Little Monsters: Released in 2012, these are shorter, thinner versions of the first five Monster releases from 2008 to 2012. The sampler includes two cigars per blend. The Mini Mum was the little version of the Tatuaje Mummy and is the only case in any Monster Series collection where one of the offshoot sizes was released before the full monster sized vitola.
• Pudgy Monsters: Released in 2014, these cigars are the same length of the Little Monsters and same ring gauge of the original Monsters. This collection introduced two new monsters not previously released before, Chuck and Tiff. Each sampler contains two Chuck and two Tiff cigars as well as one Pudgy size for each of the Monster Blends released from 2008 to 2013.
• Skinny Monsters: Includes one 6 x 38 petite lancero of each of the eight full monster releases as well as 6 x 38 versions of the Chuck and Tiff. The Skinny Monsters is unique as it is the only collection under the Monsters umbrella where the vitolas are all the same size. For the first time, there are plans for each of the Skinny Monsters blends to be made available in 25 count boxes consisting of a single blend.

The grid below maps each monster / horror film character blend to the cigar that was released in each of the Monster Series collections. A blank indicates the blend was not released in that collection.

Character/Collection	Full Monsters (The +) -Annual	Little Monsters – 2012	Pudgy Monsters (Pudgy +) – 2014	Skinny Monsters (Skinny +) – 2016
Frankenstein (2008)	Frank	Frank Jr.	Frank	Frank
Dracula (2009)	Drac	Lil’ Drac	Drac	Drac
Leather Face (2010)	Face	Baby Face	Face	Face
The Wolfman (2011)	Wolfman	Wolfie	Wolf	Wolf
The Mummy (2012)	Mummy	Mini Mum	Mummy	Mummy
Jason Voorhees (2013)	JV13		Jason	Jason
Dr. Jekyll (2014)	Jekyll			Jekyll
Mr. Hyde (2015)	Hyde			Hyde
Chuck (Child’s Play)			Chuck	Chuck
Tiff (Child’s Play)			Tiff	Tiff

 

The Skinny Tiff is based off of a character from the horror movie Child’s Play. It is one of two characters from that movie with the other being the Skinny Chuck. Both the Tiff and Chuck have not had a full (i.e. original) Monsters Series size release

Without further ado, let’s break down the Tatuaje Skinny Tiff and see what this cigar brings to the table.

Blend Profile

As mentioned, the Tatuaje Tiff is the only cigar in any of the Monster Series collections that uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper.

Wrapper: Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Country of Origin: Nicaragua (My Father Cigars SA)

Vitolas Available

Skinny Tiff becomes the second size featuring the “Tiff” blend.

Skinny Tiff: 6 x 38
Pudgy Tiff: 4 x 50

Appearance

The Tatuaje Skinny Tiff’s Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper has a golden brown color. There are some darker spots.The wrapper itself has a light amount of oil on it. There is a slight rugged look to this wrapper as there are some visible wrapper seams and visible veins.The Skinny Tiff is also finished with a triple cap.

The band is based on the standard “Tatuaje” scripted logo. The script font is black on an antique white background. The antique white background seemed to differ from the Pudgy Tiff’s band that had more of a classic white background. To the left of the “Tatuaje” scripting is the text “SKINNY” in the a bloody style red font. To the right of the scripting” it says “MONSTERS” – also in red font. To the far right is a black Tatuaje “Tattoo” stamp. The band is finished wiht a black pinstripe across the top and bottom

Preparation for the Cigar Experience

Prior to lighting up the Tatuaje Skinny Tiff, I went with my usual choice of a straight cut to remove the cap. It is worth noting that Skinny Tiff has adelicate wrapper and the cap must be clipped carefully. Once the cap was clipped from the cigar, I moved on to the pre-light draw. The cold draw of the cigar delivered notes of wood and citrus as well as a slight cream and pepper note. Overall this wasn’t the most exciting pre-light draw, but there was no loss of points here because pre-light draw is not factored into the assessment rating or score. At this point I was ready to light up the Tatuaje Skinny Tiff and see what the smoking phase would have in store.

Flavor Profile

The start to the Tatuaje Skinny Tiff delivered a mix of cedar and citrus on the tongue. There was a slight acidic quality to the citrus for most of the cigar experience. Meanwhile the cedar was also present on the retro-hale.

By the midway point of the first third, some cream notes surfaced and entered into a pattern that saw each of these three notes alternate in intensity. Meanwhile some black pepper entered the equation on both the retro-hale and on the tongue. This pattern contined deep into the second third.

As the Skinny Tiff moved into the latter stages of the second third, the black pepper had made its way into the forefront with the cream and cedar. The citrus flavor diminished significantly.

When the Skinny Tiff reached the last third, there was more in the way of spice with the pepper and cedar notes. The cream and citrus notes were not much more of a factor. This is the way the cigar experience came to a close. The resulting nub was soft to the touch and cool in temperature.

Burn and Draw

Overall the burn of the Tatuaje Skinny Tiff scored well. The Skinny Tiff maintained a relatively straight path from start to finish. There was a slight curvature on the burn line,  but this was cosmetic in nature and was not a case where additional touch-ups above the norm were needed. The resulting ash was on the firm side with a salt and pepper complexion. As for the burn rate and burn temperature, both were ideal.

As for the Skinny Tiff’s draw, I found it be on the open, but not the loose side (a different experience than Paul had when he talked about the Skinny Tiff on Stogie Geeks). This was a low maintenance cigar to derive flavor from.

Strength and Body

From a strength perspective, I found the Skinny Tiff to be more dialed back than its Pudgy Tiff sibling. In fact, I found the Skinny Tiff to be one of the more dialed back Monster Series releases out there. Overall I assessed this cigar as being a mild to medium strength cigar from start to finish. In terms of body, I found the Skinny Tiff to be more in line with the Pudgy Tiff as I assessed it to be a medium-bodied smoke.

When looking at strength versus body, I gave the edge to the body.

Final Thoughts

The Skinny Tiff is a good case study in terms of the “Cigar Coop / Stogie Geeks” philosophy of “size matters” – namely judging and assessing each vitola on its own. With the Tiff blend, I found it worked much better with the Pudgy Tiff’s Short Robusto format over the Skinny Tiff’s petite lancero format. There are now 31 vitolas offered in the Monster Series collections and not everyone is going to rank #1 on the list. With the Skinny Tiff, this is one that didn’t rank high in my book. The negative on the Skinny Tiff is the acidic quality I got from the citrus notes.

The Skinny Monsters sampler provides a great opportunity to sample all of the Skinny Monster blends and see which cigars in the sampler fit your palate. As for myself, it’s more of a cigar where I would pick one up and see how it responds to some longer term aging.

Summary

Burn: Excellent
Draw: Excellent
Complexity: Medium
Strength: Mild to Medium
Body: Medium
Finish: Good
Assessment: 2.5-Try One
Score: 87

References

News: Tatuaje Skinny Monsters Coming Soon
Price: $85.00
Source: Purchased
Stogie Geeks Podcast: Tatuaje Skinny Monsters Tiff
Stogie Feed: Episode 85
Brand Reference: Tatuaje